astrowhiz wrote:

aberneth wrote:

astrowhiz wrote:Reading the ANU official media release and the newspaper articles it's classic tabloid science reporting
It's an interesting development in it's field but it's not a tractor beam in the sense it was reported.
I think the star trek tractor beam is always gonna be science fiction. I'm assuming it supposedly used gravitons (if the graviton model is correct) but I can't see a feasible way they could be manipulated in that way.

Hah! A vehicle that flies? How preposterous. Air is light, and machines are heavy. I can't see a feasible way to make a machine fly through the air.

To believe that math and science have reached their zenith is a short sighted contention that ignores all historical precedent and modern affairs.

"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such"
-Francis Fukuyama, 1992

Erm... ok. Well if gravitons exist and are detectable, and it's a big if considering gravitational waves are proving so elusive to detection, the only analogy I can think of at the moment is - I can't think of a feasible way of picking up a pen with my mind alone.
It's nothing to do with short-sightedness it's that certain physical laws are immutable throughout the universe and producing a collimated beam of gravitons which only affect a specific target is literally science fiction.
I'll stand corrected if Klazmon or Twistor59 say otherwise though..

The laws of physics in that realm of physics are fuzzy at best. I'm not submitting this as a citation of any kind, but as a tool for explaining the vastness and complexity of that which humans alone can not witness in this universe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_particles

New particles are discovered more than infrequently, particles whose functions are not well understood. Our understanding of the universe is but a minutia of what there is to be known. You can't think of a way to make a graviton tractor beam? Neither can I. In 300 years, though, our understanding of matter and energy as it pertains to a graviton tractor beam is likely to be drastically different than it is today. I think this is a matter of history as much as it is a matter of that which has yet to pass.

Look back, and you will see forward.